REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER'S THANKSGIVING SERMON. 

THE HONBY IN THE LION'S CARCASE. 




AND EMANCIPA'nON 



A THANKSGIVING SERMON. 



rREACHED TN THE 



i PLYMOUTH CiniRCK, BROOKLYN, In. Y. 

I ' 

f, ON THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21, ISGl. 



) REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER. ^ 



r,Y 



Text. — "And after a time he returned to take her, and ho turned aside tcisee the carcase of ' 
) the lion : and behold, there was a swarm of bees and honoj' in the. carcase of the lion." — . 



,1 iincKS xir. P. 



P n I L A B E T. P II T A : 
T. D. PETERSON & BROTHEKS, 306 CHESTNUT STREET. 



Price 15 cents a copy; 8 copies for $1.00; or $10.00 a hundred. 

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WAR AND EMANCIPATION 



A THANKSGIVLYG SERMOK 



PREACHED IN THE 



PLYMOUTH CHURCH, BROOKLYN, N. Y, 

On Thursday, November 21, 1861. 



KEY. HENRY WAET) BEECHER. 



Text.— "And aft°ratimc he returned to take her, and he turned aside to see the carcase of 
the lion: and behold, there was a swarm of bees and honey in the carcase of the lion."— 
Judges xiv. 8. 



PHILADELPHIA: 
T. B. PETERSON & BEOTHERS, 

No. 306 CHESTNUT STREET. 



A 



.fcA 



61503 
'05 



s 






^- THE HONEY II THE LIOFS CARCASE. 



A THANKSGIVING SERJION, 

ON THE 

WAR AND EMANCIPATION, 

PREACHED BV 

REY. HENRY WARD BEECHER, 

AT THE 

PLYMOUTH CHURCH, BROOKLYN, 
November 21st, 1861. 



Text.— "And after a time he returned to take her, and he turned aside to see the carcase 
of the lion : and behold, there was a swarm of bees and hone7 in the carcase of the lion."— 
Judges xiv. 8. 



Sampson Avas on an errand of love. He was inter- 
rupted by a lion, which he slew, for love is stronger 
than any lion. He gained his suit. Alas ! everything 
went by contraries. Thereafter, the woman whose 
love was sweeter to him than honey at first, betrayed 
him ; she was his hon ; whereas, on his way home he 
found that bees had possession of the real Hon's carcase, 
and had filled it with honey, and so in the end the lion 
was better to him than his wife. 

But how full of suggestions is this incident ! AVho 



would have looked for honey in a lion's caul 1 While 
he was yet roaring and striking at Sampson, there 
seemed very little likelihood of his finding a honeyed 
meal out of him ; but if lions bravely slain yield such 
food, then let them become emblems ! 

The bee signifies industry among all nations, and 
honey is the very ideal of sweetness. To-day war is 
upon us, a Uon is on our path, but being bravely met, 
in its track shall industry settle, and we shall yet fetch 
honey from the carcase of war. You will not object 
then, if to-day I bring you honey from this lion's body. 
At first, and to unhopeful souls, it would seem as if 
no day of thanksgiving ever was so sadly planted. 
Nor will I undertake to persuade you that there are 
no e^dls to bemoan. There are many ; but the evils 
are transient, superficial and vincible, — the benefits are 
permanent, radical, and multiplying. Not long ago we 
were a united nation. Our industry was bringing in 
riches as the tides of the ocean, and no man could 
imagine the manhood of a continent whose youth was 
so august. Now, a hne of fire runs through our country 
from East to West, and more than half a million men 
confront each other with hostile arms ! Villages arc 
burned ; farms are deserted ; neighbors are at bloody 
variance ; industry stands still through fifteen States, 
or only forges implements of war ; the sky at night is 
red with camp fires, — by day the ground trembles with 
the tramp of armies ; yet amid many great and undeni- 
able evils which every Christian patriot must bitterly 



lament, there are eminent reasons for thankfulness, 
several of which I shall point out to you. 

I. Since we must accept this war with all its unde- 
niable evils, it is a matter for thanksgiving that the 
citizens and la-svfid government of these United States, 
can appeal to the Judge of the Universe, and to all 
riffht minded men to bear witness, that this is not a 
war waged in the interest of any base passion; but 
truly and religiously in the defence of tlie highest 
interests ever committed to a nation's keeping. It is 
not on our side a war of passion, nor of avarice, — God 
is judge ! — nor of anger ; nor for revenge ; nor of fear ; 
nor of jealousy, as if to cripple a dangerous rival. We 
hold that the territory of these United States is com- 
mon to all its inhabitants, and is not simply a posses- 
sion, but a trust, and unless by deliberate decision of 
the people, lawfully assembled, and constitutionally 
expressed, it can never be abandoned, alienated, nor 
partitioned. We hold it in trust for the future ! 

Is it the duty of New York to defend its own terri- 
tory against foes without or evil men withm, from the 
Lakes to Montauk Point \ Is it the duty of each New 
England State to defend every foot within its jurisdic- 
tion \ In lilve manner and for the same reasons it is 
the duty of all the States coUcctively, to maintain the 
integrity of the national domain. It is not a question 
of whether we will or will not. Until by appointed 
and proper methods of the constitution it has been 
taken from our hands, it remains in them ; not subject 



6 



to our volition, but binding us by that silent oath that 
every man swears who comes to years of maturity and 
citizenship, to maintain inviolate the territory of these 
United States. It is the duty of the citizens also, to 
stand up for their government ; to protect its righteous 
authority ; to maintain all its attributes, and to see to it 
that its jurisdiction is not restricted, except by those 
methods which have been predetermined and agreed 
upon in that constitution on which it stands. But in 
our particular case the reasons for maintaining the 
government in all its ample jurisdiction are intensified 
beyond all measure, by the fact that the dangers which 
are threatened it, arise confessedly and undeniably not 
from the perversion of the principles of the constitution 
in our hands, or from oppressive administration of this 
government under those principles ; but because a 
large body of men, gradually infected with new politi- 
cal doctrines, in their nature irreconcilable with the 
root principle of our government, have determined to 
overthrow it, that they may change its fundamental 
principles! We are not left to infer this. There is 
this merit in Southern politicians, that they are frank 
and open in the declaration of political doctrines. The 
best head among them is Mr. Stephens, and he declares 
in the most emphatic manner, that the object of the 
rebellion is to introduce new principles in the govern- 
ment instead of the old. I shall read : 

"The new constitution puts at rest forever the 
agitated question relative to our peculiar institution." 



(Mr. Beecher. — We shall see whether it is forever^ 
"African slavery as it exists among us — the proper 
status of the negro in our form of civilization. This 
was the immediate cause of the late rupture and 
present revolution. Jefferson, in his forecast, had 
anticipated this as the ' rock upon which the old 
Union would split.' He was right. What was con- 
jecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether 
he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that 
rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevail- 
ing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading 
statesmen at the time of the formation of the old 
constitution, were, that the enslavement of the African 
was in violation of the laws of nature, that it was 
wrong in principle, socially, morally and politically." 
(Mr. Beecher. — I thank him for that testimony.) " It 
was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but 
the general opinion of the men of that day was that, 
somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the 
institution would be evanescent and pass away. The 
idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was 
the prevailing idea at the time. The constitution, it 
is true, secured every essential guarantee to the insti- 
tution while it should last, and hence no argument can 
be justly used against the constitutional rights thus 
secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. 
Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wroni>-. 
They rested upon the assumption of the equality of 
races. This was an error. It was a sandv foundation. 



and the idea of government built upon it ; but when 
the ' storm came and the wind blew, it fell.' Our new 
government is founded upon exactly the opposite 
ideas." (Mr. Beecher. — I thank him for that acknow- 
ledgment.) " Its foundations are laid, its corner-stone 
rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal 
to the white man;" — (Mr. Beecher. — What an ac- 
knowledgment for a government) — " that slavery, sub- 
ordination to the superior race, is his natural and 
normal condition. Thus, our new government is the 
first in the history of the world based upon this great 
physical, philosophical, and moral truth." (Mr. 
Beecher. — And I will take the liberty so far to 
interpolate his speech as to say, it will be the last. 
Farther on, Mr. Stephens says, — it is excellent 
reading, so that I cannot deny myself the pleasure of 
reading it to you) — " May we not, therefore, look with 
confidence upon the ultimate acknowledgment of the 
principle on which our government rests. It is the 
first government ever instituted upon principles in 
strict conformity to nature, and the ordination of 
Providence, in furnishing the materials of human 
society. Many governments have been founded on 
the principle of certain classes; but the classes thus 
enslaved, were of the same race, and in violation of 
the laws of nature. Our system contains no such 
violation of nature's laws. The negro, by nature and 
the curse of Canaan, is fitted for that condition which 
he occupies in our system. The architect, in the 



construction of buildings, lays the foundation with the 
proper materials — the granite, then comes the brick or 
the marble. The substratum of our society is made of 
the material fitted by nature for it, and by experience 
we know that it is the best, not only for the superior, 
but for the inferior race, that it should be so. It is, 
indeed, in conformity with the Creator. It is not for 
us to inquire into the wisdom of his ordinances, or to 
question them. For his own purposes he has made 
one race to differ from another, as he has made 'one 
star to differ from another in glory.' The great 
objects of humanity are best attained when conformed 
to his laws and decrees, in the formation of govern- 
ments, as well as in all things else. Our confederacy 
is founded upon principles in strict conformity with 
these laws. 'This stone which was rejected by the 
first builders, is become the chief stone of the corner 
in our new edifice.' " 

These last words, you will remember, were spoken 
by the Lord Jesus Christ, when set at naught and re- 
jected by the Jews, his countrymen; and the Vice- 
President of these so-called Confederate States does 
not hesitate to declare, with infamous effrontery, that 
slavery, based on no other law than this, that slaves are 
of a different race : " that slavery stands in our system 
in the place in which Jesus Christ stands in the Chris- 
tian scheme :" has become the head of the corner. Dr. 
Smyth, of Charleston, second to none in influence and 
learning among them, declares, " What is the difficulty 



10 

and what is the remedy 1 Not in the election of Re- 
publican Presidents. No ! Not in the non-execution 
of the fugitive slave bill. No ! But it is back of all 
these. It is found in that atheistic red republican doc- 
trine of tlie Declaration of Independence. Until that 
is trampled under foot there can be no peace." Allow 
me to say, until that is trampled under foot or its 
antagonist^ there can be no peace. Which is to go 
under, time will show. I might multiply testimony. 
It is needless. The matter, so far from disguise, is the 
pride and boast of that boastful land. This, then, 
mark you, is a rebellion not against an oppressive ad- 
ministration, or against the principle of equal justice, 
of the fundamental right of liberty in every man who 
has not forfeited it by crime. That miserable subter- 
fuge, that we hold, because all men are equal, that all 
men are therefore of one degree of power! It never 
has been pretended at all. We hold that men are as 
children are before a father; not equal in talent, nor 
wealth, nor opportunity of usefulness in the employ- 
ment of their various endowments; but this: that 
every child, strong or weak, has a right to claim the 
same hind of justice, the same Jclnd of chance that the 
other has ; and we hold that all mankind, born black 
as night, or white as daylight, have the right to the 
free and unobstructed use of those powers of body and 
of mind that God Almighty endowed them with, and 
in this sense are equal — in their rights equal ; and it is 
declai'ed without equivocation or discussion, that the 



11 



war is brought upon us — the revoUition and war — be- 
cause our government contains this false principle. It 
is a rebellion against this principle of government, and 
the people of this nation are aroused to defend their 
Constitution and their Government, not simply because 
it is assailed, but as if Providence meant to make this 
conflict illustrious in the annals of the world, because 
it is assailed in those very respects in which it embo- 
dies the latest fruit of Christianity, and the last attain- 
ment of modern civilization. The very things which 
belong to our own age in distinction from any which 
ever went before it — these are the very things which 
have been singled out and made the object of attack. 
We would defend our Constitution at any rate, but 
when it is charged with the noblest principles as with 
a crime, it appeals to every conscience and every heart 
in this land with a solemnity as of the day of judg- 
ment for its defence. In view of these facts, that are 
not hidden at home nor abroad, what are we to say of 
that amazing charge of Earl Russell, late Lord John 
llussell, where in an express manner he declares, that 
this is not a conflict, although originating in slavery, 
for it or against if? Although it involves, somewhat, 
commercial interests, yet he declares positively it is not 
a question of tariff. It is only, he says, one of those 
conflicts that have been waged so many times before in 
Europe — a conflict on the one side for empire and on 
the other side for power. He sees only an ambitious, 
selfish conflict, waged between two sections with re- 



12 

spect to territory and dominion. We repel, with just 
indignation and with glowing pride, the amazing charge. 
We are contending not for that part of our Constitu- 
tion which Justinian gave us, nor for that which came 
in any way from Home, expressing justice as it was 
developed in that iron-hearted realm ; but that which 
Christianity gave us, and which has been working out 
for eighteen hundred years. The principle in the con- 
flict is the very one which gives unity to history. It 
is that golden thread which leads us through the dark 
mazes of nearly two thousand years, and connects us 
with the immortal Head of the Church. It is the 
principle of man^s right based on the divinity of his 
origin. It is on that ground that all are brothers, and 
all alike stand on one great platform of justice and of 
love. That has been the struggle of eighteen hundred 
years, and this principle has been embodied in our 
Constitution, and this, with singular infatuation and 
clarity, the exponent of Southern views declares to be 
the very point of offence in our Constitution, and says, 
in unmistakable language, and with blasphemous illus- 
tration, that it is against that attribute that they are in 
arms to-day. Is there no cause for thanksgiving, then, 
that since we must war, God has called us to battle on 
ground so high, for ends so noble, in a cause so pure 
and for results so universal? For this is not a battle 
for us alone. It is so in our times : that every great 
deed, nobly done, is done for all mankind. The Poto- 
mac is the river of the earth, and battles there for our 



13 



Constitution, because it is a document of liberty, are 
the world's battles, and we are fighting not for our own 
liberty, but for those ideas which are the breastworks 
of liberty throughout the whole world, and there is 
not a man who bears the chain, there is not a man — 
serf, yeoman, slave, or what not — that has not an inter- 
est in the conflict, that we are set in God's providence 
to wage against these momentous doctrines of gigantic 
iniquity ! There is honey in that lion. 

II. It is a matter of thanksgiving that we have no 
sought this war, but by a magnanimous course have 
endured shame and political loss and disturbance the 
most serious, rather than to peril the Union. Indeed, 
I am bound to say, that so strong had the national 
feeling been with us, and so weak with them, that 
what they trod under their feet with contempt we have 
made an idol of, and like idolators, had thrown our- 
selves down at the expense of our very self-respect, at 
the feet of our idol of the Union. I do not mean that 
it would have been wrong to have taken the initiative 
in the cause which employs this conflict ; but if, when 
the end is right and the cause sacred, it can also 
be shown that there has been patient and earnest and 
long-continued effort to seek the right by peaceful 
methods, by reasoning, by merciful appeal, and that 
the most desperate of remedies— war, has been forced 
upon us, not sought, not wished but accepted reluc- 
tantly, forced upon us by the overt act of rebellion, 



14 



and is not either of our wish or procuring, then tliis 
patience and forbearance and reluctance to war will 
give an added lustre to our cause. I make these 
remarks out of respect to the Christian sentiment of 
nations. Contiguity is raising up a new element of 
power on the globe, and we do not hesitate to pay a 
just respect to the opinions of the Christian church 
and philantrophic people of other lands, and we stand 
boldly before earnest peace men, the kind advisers, the 
yearning mediators, yea, and before the body of Christ, 
his Church on earth, to declare ; that this war, which 
we could not avert without giving up all that Christian 
civilization has set us to guard and to transmit, cannot 
on the other hand be abandoned without betraying 
every principle of justice, and of rectitude, and of 
liberty. 

We do not fear search and trial before the tribunal 
of earth in the end. Those who should have given 
sympathy, but have given hatred, chilling advice, and 
ignorant rebuke, shall yet confess their mistake, and 
our fealty to God and to Government and to mankind. 

When it would have swelled our sails, there was no 
breath of applause or sympathy. When the gale is no 
longer needed, and our victorious voyage is ended, we 
shall have incense and gales of admiration enough. 

But meanwhile, God has called us to war upon a plan 
so high as never feet, I think, trod before ; and though 
we did not want it, and prayed against it, and with 
long endurance sought to avert it and avoid it, now it 



15 

has come it is an infinite satisfaction to know that we 
can stand acquitted hefore the Christianity of the glohe 
in such a conflict as this. There is honey in that lion. 

III. It is a matter of thanksgiving that this even 
promises to solve those difficult problems which have 
baffled the wisdom of our wisest counsellors. There 
stands in the Vatican at Rome a marble prophecy of 
America. A noble and heroic man ; on either side a 
lovely son ; but all, father and sons, grasped in the 
coils of a many time's enfolding serpent, whose 
tightening hold not their utmost strength can resist 
and with agonized face Laocoon looks up, as if his 
anguish said, " Only the gods can save me, whose hate 
I have offended." 

So sat America. Around this Government and 
around the clustered States, twined the gigantic ser- 
pent of slavery ; but here let the emblem stop. Let 
us hope another history awaits us than that of the 
fabled Greek. There have been secret and open 
reasons — many, that have made slavery a most un- 
manageable thing in our national counsel. 

Had it been desired to test to the uttermost the 
power of republican institutions to sustain good 
government, no other conceivable trial can be ima- 
ffined that would do it as this has and will. It 
gathered up in its coils almost every one of those 
unmanageable elements, each one of which is ac- 
counted a match for human wisdom in other times. 



16 

An inferior race, a foreign race, separated from us by 
physiological signs and badges of the most marked 
character ; a people whose nation brought in the 
element of climate, and whose existence, in the rela- 
tions of government, fed every one of the fiercer 
passions, and touched but few of the moral sentiments, 
and these but feebly ; educating men to idleness, 
avarice, lust and pride of dominion. Thus these poor 
African bondmen, in all their helplessness and weak- 
ness, were cast into this nation's troubles, with diffi- 
culties of caste, of race, of condition, of climate, 
difficulties which the strongest and wisest knew 
not how to endure ! War seems likely to clear up 
the question which politics could not touch. By our 
organic law, we were forbidden to meddle with local 
institutions, and though they were infecting the 
national veins with their poison, though we saw 
that from these local institutions general and national 
influences were going forth, yet our organic instru- 
ment would not permit us to lay our hand upon 
them. 

We could not bring to bear the moral forces by 
which other evils are met. There was no public 
sentiment that could wrestle with slavery; partly 
because no public sentiment can ever avail against 
the blinding passions. There is not in all the broad 
globe a moral influence that is of direct omnipotence — 
there is not an influence on the broad globe that can 
resist ; that can for a moment stand the charge of 



17 

the aroused passions of the masses of mankind. The 
bottom of the head is ten thousand times stronger 
than the top of the head, in the race and in the world. 
There was also sectional pride and jealousy which 
prevented our access to the South by any public 
sentiment. There was more than that. There was 
that inevitable ignorancewhi ch must come where the 
few are owners, and the mass are poor and dependent. 
There were both also political and commercial influ- 
ences which were dividing us — insidiously dividing 
good men one from another, and making it impossible 
to raise any public sentiment, except a tempestuous 
one, which could do no good. And so we were 
drifting — the Xorth more clear for liberty every year 
— the South more determined for slavery, and by that 
very fact each having less and less influence with the 
other, 

Xow it has pleased God by the very infatuation 
of these people rudely to dash these two sections 
together. But this conflict can procure emancipation 
in no such way as England is pleased to propose, as 
the condition of her sympathy, — by direct politicallv 
conferred emancipation. England speaks and says, — 
not her lion, that I think in these latter days has a 
touch of doubt, — England speaks and says, " If vou 
will make this a war for a principle, I will be with 
you. If you will make this a war for emancipation, 
then we will give not only sympathy and prayer, 

but all needed succour." 

2 



18 

It was not by England's sympathy that we became 
independent ; it was not by her advice that we became 
her equal, and we shall perhaps be able to settle our 
troubles without England's sympathy. For one, I 
am not so ungenerous as to lay up anything, and I 
am not so ungenerous as to remark against the race and 
stock from which I am proud to have come; but 
when we have such sublime leadings of God's provi- 
dence, and England, with the voice of her curmudgeon, 
assumes to proffer sympathy or advice, I do not hesi- 
tate to say to her, — Kemain at home ! We will do 
our own work, and you shall be spectators. 

But one thing, however, we will have from her. 
I say it in the face of England before her time, and 
she cannot help herself — there is one thing we shall 
have from her yet. In the coming end, when all our 
troubles are settled, we shall have their admiration 
and then their sympathy, and then, after a while, 
we shall live on, just as we have before, only a good 
deal better; but meanwhile, however much it may 
hurt us, or alarm us, or grieve us, we are bound to 
say that we are going to trust in God, and get along 
without England. 

Of aM the advice which has been given, while 
it may seem to those who know not the facts or 
nature of our institutions, the most direct and 
rational, and yet of all advice given, there is none 
which chimes more with Northern popular impulse 
than this, to make a declaration of emancipation to 



19 

settle this difficulty. But neither popular feelings, 
nor foreign advice can be followed. We must con- 
duct this war, my friends, hy and through our institu- 
tions, or else we must declare that our institutions 
have failed and we have reverted to original prin- 
ciples — one or the other of these courses. 

The last we cannot and shall not do. We are 
not going to say to the world that Republican institu- 
tions have so signally foiled, that we have abandoned 
them, and are going for the war to go back and 
re-establish other ones. No man will say that. If, 
then, we are fighting for our Constitution, we must 
not violate it ourselves. A pretty thing, to make 
war against them for violating the Constitution, 
when we are willing to violate it ourselves ! We 
may not congressionally declare emancipation. I 
wish we could ! I wish we could ! I wish Adam 
had not sinned, and his posterity had not been 
affected; but that does not help the matter, as I 
can see. I wish our fathers had stood out against 
what are called the compromises of the Constitution. 
Better then than now. The serpent just hatched is 
not half as much to be feared as the full grown 
serpent, and our troubles have giown with every 
generation. But what is the use of sighing ] That 
isn't it. We cannot reject the Constitution. We 
have lived under it — have declared our fealty to it. 
Can we now break the compact, though we seek 



20 

even so magnificent a result as the emancipation 
of the slave ? 

Shall we rend the crystal instrument — the joy of the 
world and our pride ? It is a very easy thing to say, 
'• It is a state of war, let us declare emancipation." It 
is n't on our part a revolution. We stand in our insti- 
tutions. We believe in them. W^e administer the 
war by them ; in consonance with their spirit and 
their forms ; and we must. We cannot, by destroying 
the Constitution, accomplish these desirable ends. If 
any ask me whether a law or constitution is superior 
to original principles of morality or justice, I say no. 
But plighted faith is in the nature of a moral principle. 
It is one of the original principles. Our faith is given; 
we must keep it. When we cannot abide by our 
promise, then in methods expressly provided, we must 
withdraw the pledge and agreement, and withdraw 
constitutionally and stand apart as two separate 
peoples. 

Are we, then, shut up by these reasonings'? No, we 
are not. What the pen of legislation ctmnot do, the 
sword of war will do. What we could never have 
liberty to do, they themselves have afforded us the 
means of doing, and thrust upon themselves; and there 
never was an instance in which condign punishment 
has followed the step of trangression more surely than 
is seen in this, that having made war for the mainte- 
nance of slavery, they have brought down on their 
heads its destruction. 



21 

Let us see. The Southern strength in this self-im- 
posed war, is slavery. They have placed their system 
as a bulwark, and are fighting our Constitution behind 
that. And now, so it has come to pass, by their own 
selecting and arrangement, that we are not able to 
fulfill our sworn compact and duty, and maintain the 
integrity of this land and Constitution itself, according 
to its own forms and in consonance with our oath, 
except by defending them against those who assail 
them with the shield of slavery on their arms, and in 
open transgression. We shall strike through their 
shield. It is not a political act, but a military neces- 
sity which they have brought upon themselves, and 
beginning emancipation we will carry it to such a 
degree, as to make slavery a burden to them, and, at 
least, we will make them most earnest in the end to 
put an end to it. But look now at the effect of eman- 
cipation in war — not in violation of the Constitution, 
but according to it; for if men rebel against govern- 
ment, by that crime they forfeit life itself and much 
more, property and standing; and by revolution they 
have forfeited their lives and property according to 
local law, and that property according to the declara- 
tion Scripture has made, if not wings, yet feet, and run 
away — much of it. 

The government must take these fugitives in some 
way into its hands. What do we behold! Either 
one of two things ; that men that have been set free 



22 

by no act of their masters, and by no superior authori- 
ty, men now, not in scores but in hundreds and thous- 
ands, are held by our government ; only six months ago 
slaves under local law, men, women, and children, 
now, by a law self-imposed, they have gone out from 
under local laws. The government now holds them. 
How "? As men, or captives 1 Where can you find 
law or constitutional forms that will permit these 
fugitives to be treated as other than men 1 "Where is 
there any article that will give the right to the Gov- 
ernment to look upon these as any other than men"? 
You may call them contrabands, you may invent with 
dexterity whatever term you choose. The Southern 
law that called them slaves is broken, and they have 
now come into possession of the Government of the 
United States, to be nothing else than men. They 
are emancipated, and there are to-day thousands upon 
thousands of emancipated men in the possession of the 
Government, which is bound to treat them, if not as 
citizens yet as men ! 

Be pleased to consider what disturbance the system 
must have ; and as our armies progress, step by step, 
what swarms will rise up, just as soon as liberty 
is given them. It is a little puzzling to me, having 
heard it said by so many good men, that this patriar- 
chal institution begets such a love between master and 
slave that they would not take liberty as a gift, to ob- 
serve the infatuation which seems to have seized, in the 



23 

disorderly affairs of our nation, these blessed creatures, 
so that they prefer the bondage of liberty, to the liberty 
of bondage. It seems so strange I can hardly account 
for it unless it be on the supposition that there was 
some mistake in the premises. I suspect that the Af- 
rican does after all love liberty ; though I do not doubt 
that curled hair, black skin, and curved spines make 
great political differences, yet, I suspect in one thing 
the African is still like the Anglo-Saxon. They are 
both of God, and the touch which God left on them 
and in them is there; not on their face, but invisible; 
and every creature formed after God's image, how base 
soever he may be, longs to be free. 

In so vast a system, so loosely compacted, and so 
subject to fevers and inflammations, the very disturb- 
ance of it, the disturbance of the occupations of the 
slaves, turning them away from their regular fields, 
and the reasons why they are so turned away, which 
must needs break into their darkened minds, inuring 
them to work for purposes of manhood, all these are 
educating them to be free. They are preparing the 
way. But that is not all. The South has consented 
to pay a premium of about $200,000,000 on free 
cotton. There was never such stupendous liberality 
since the world began. The South has said to the world 
— " If you would like to outbid us in the market, we 
have been making our wealth out of cotton, rice, &c., 
but nevertheless we will agree to tie our hands up for 



24 

two years ; we will not appear in the markets of the 
world. Take that premium and raise these products," 
and meanwhile India and China are raising them, 
and all the world to-day is raising them. There seems 
to me a picture of beauty in that justice by which 
cotton on this shore invited cotton from Africa. 
Cotton from Africa shall yet strike off the shackles 
from the bondmen in America, and as cotton made 
slavery cotton shall cure it. 

When then, the government progressing by its arms 
from State to State, shall have accepted slaves of those 
States that have been in arms, — and this is the true 
doctrine and the only one which I can understand, — 
one which is constitutionally permissible, one which is 
forced upon us by the act of rebellion, and by the 
necessities of war, viz., confiscating the property of men 
in arms against the government, and that will be the 
property of by far the largest number of slave owners, 
and the government will soon own more slaves than 
those that are left. Now, the first duty the govern- 
ment can have, will be to have a provisional govern- 
ment adapted to these emancipated slaves. This 
government is not going, I take it, to put them up at 
auction. 

Our government has got to do something with them. 
There is going to be a United States government for 
freemen in the South. There is going to be a national 
government over the nation's freemen right by the 



25 

side of the national government over slave men. 
There are going to be two antagonistic governments 
together. How will they work'? See what they have 
done. They have compelled us in defending the Con- 
stitution to extend, its JEgis over their slaves. They 
have compelled us to bring down, right into their midst, 
a new form of provisional government for wants which 
they themselves have created. Do you suppose the 
slave system is going to stand on such a firm founda- 
tion as it has in days past] I fancy that its days are 
ended, and just as fast as we are able to take care of 
them, God will put them into our hands. 

Before the African is permitted to swing back the 
mysterious portal and step into life, God, by means of 
his own, has provided means of meeting his w^ants and 
taking care of his infancy, just as the mother is God's 
provision for the wants of an infant child. Now God 
never prepares a future birth of a multitude, any more 
than of an individual, without having prepared a bosom 
on which it may lie, and food which it can eat, and 
provision has been made for this race as it is coming 
into its new condition. Where there is a want there 
is a supply already provided. Let me then express 
again, as a matter of the most profound thanksgiving, 
that although the steps and appliances by which eman- 
cipation is to be completed are not apparent, we see 
the direction in which it is travelling, and from which 
we believe it will come ! 



26 

What we could not do politically, they have given 
us the liberty of doing by the arm of the military. 
What is more : when this great struggle is past, it will 
lay the foundation of a peace firmer than we have had 
before. 

1. Because it must extinguish that pestilent heresy 
of the sovereignty of individual States. We are not 
thirty crowned sovereigns sitting in voluntary council 
together; we are thirty united States, whose general 
union and local independence are both alike immutable. 
The government cannot take away the local authority, 
and States cannot take away the general authority of 
the government, and one is as immutable as the other. 
Our political troubles came through this heresy. Slavery 
is the cause, but State independence was the crevice in 
which the powder was sifted which would have exploded 
this goverenment, and it must, therefore, be made 
burglar-proof, by stopping up those cracks, and when 
they touch off their powder again, it will be all outside. 

2. It will bring into better acquaintance and respect 
the North and the South. They have hitherto met 
chiefly in only two places, and that very little of late. 
The South have come to Saratoga and Newport and 
other watering places, and I must beg leave to say, that 
what they see when they come here is not what we 
should be willing to present as specimens of the North. 
Our summer rabble at the great watering places are 
not a fair index of New England families, nor of the 



27 

Northern community. The other place where they 
meet is in the halls of Congress, and heaven forbid that 
it should be thought that those men represent us! 
But now we have sent a representative which we are 
quite willing should march through the South to tell 
them what Northern men are, and what Northern men 
mean to do. Since they as a mass cannot read, we 
must give them vocal instruction. 

Since they would not come to our school, we must 
send our schoolmasters to them, and revive again here, 
on a larger sphere, the old peripatetic system, by which 
philosophers walked, and their disciples went with 
them. By the time our armies have gone through the 
Southern States, I think there will be a thorough 
change of public sentiment of the South in respect to 
the manhood, courage and power and resources of the 
North, and I tell you without sarcasm and without 
double entendre, it is on this that I expect there will yet 
stand a peace in times to come, that we never had and 
never could have had before. They have not respected 
or they have not understood your civiUzation ; for such 
is the inevitable condition into which slavery brings 
the white man, that they cannot understand the ele- 
ments belonging to Northern civilization. 

The thin<' which will at last inoculate them is the 
mailed Jisf, mid that which you cannot tell them by 
word of mouth you can by a smite of the hand. There 
are some things that parents do not tell their children, 



28 

except in the act of discipline. Moral ideas sometimes 
come through the skin, and there never was an instance 
in which the community needed more to be instructed 
in the language in which they were born and they 
themselves speak, than the Southern community, and 
when they find that you are courageous and more than 
a match for them in arms, from that moment they will 
respect you, and when there is a better understanding 
of each other there will be a better chance for peace, 
and although just at present there is neither under- 
standing nor respect, nor any particular evidence of 
peace, yet I think that the corn is growing that shall 
yet wave with those kernels in its ear. 

IV. There are likewise causes of rejoicing on account 
of the Providential benefits which have surromided and 
accompanied this struggle thus far. 

1. If this war had broken out before, I know not 
how we shoidd have been able to maintain it. 

I shudder when I look back at the condition of the 
North ! If ten years ago this struggle had been forced 
upon us, our foes woidd have been those of our own 
household. But what a change! What a vast im- 
provement has been made in the Northern States by 
the enlightening of the Northern conscience, and in 
the uniting of the people since 1850, and not matil we 
were in some sense prepared did God permit the 
accomplishment of these events which have brought to 



29 

pass this crisis, and how it is a matter of profound 
thanksgiving that we are a united North. I do not 
mean that there are no reptiles that hu'k in their holes 
and liiss, but I do mean that they no sooner put their 
heads above the earth than they are scotched. 

I doubt not there are many men w^lio would do 
mischief if they could, but the North stands like the 
old Apostle, who, while throwing fuel on the fire, a 
viper fastened on his hand, and when the spectators 
looked that he should die, saying, "he is a criminal 
escaped from justice," behold he shook it off and suf- 
fered no harm, and they thought he was a God after- 
ward. 

First they thought he was a cidprit, and then a deity, 
and so the North, standing by this fire and warming 
itself and casting on fuel, finds on its hands some 
vipers; yet it shakes them off and suffers no harm. 
We are a community infrangible, indivisible, and, as 
sure as the sun rises and sets, victorious! 

2. Nor are we to forget that, as the stars in their 
courses fought against Sisera, so there lia^^e been great 
natural agencies in this great conflict, that have been 
co-oporating with us. Who that shuddered at the 
crisis of '57, knew that God was saying to us : — " Take 
in your sails, put your ship in order, a hurricane is 
about to fall on you." Nevertheless, we put the ship 
in good condition, and now that the storm has come we 
understand the reason of the warning. There never 



30 

was a time when the North could so well afford as 
now, to have a storm upon us; for, although indivi- 
dual men are falling down, the community was never 
so rich ; never in condition to bear the burden of war 
so well as now. 

3. Nor is that all : When war had come, it pleased 
God to say to the winds and the rain, that travel far 
and near, fulfilling his purpose, " Make the earth teem 
with plenty, breed grain in the clod. He that made 
the seven years of plenty and the seven years of famine, 
made two years of superabundance and plenty with us, 
to take the crown from the head of cotton and put it 
on the head of grain. 

For whaf? Because this had been their peculiar 
boast, "Cotton is King, and by this power we will 
bring France with her haughty Emperor, and England 
to our terms, and we will crush the North by the 
fleecy sceptre of cotton." 

We did not know it. God knew it. I walked 
through all the cornfields, and heard the leaves rust- 
ling, and, ignorant soid that I was, I thought it was 
the wind sweeping through the corn, and did not 
understand the messages, but it was God speaking 
to me in the rustling corn, which now I understand, 
though before I knew it not, and every field through- 
out the North lifted up its long sword blades, pre- 
figuring the victorious swords, and every one that 



31 

came through said, " Liberty is coming, emancipation 
is coming. Corn shall dethrone cotton, for now just 
when mechanical England would have demanded our 
ports to be opened — what ] She needs our grain more 
than she needs Southern cotton. She must feed her 
men before she gives their hands anything to do, and 
we come nearer starring them than the South comes 
nearer clothing them. So the Emperor too has just 
been obliged to send into his minister the declaration 
that he has laid aside his material prerogative to open 
fresh budgets of expense, that he will restrict himself, 
and that the nation may economise. 

In other words, just at the time when we are enjoy- 
ing boundless prosperity, France is obliged to curtail 
her army, and to save in every possible matter. We 
have good guarantees for peace there, and we have 
good guarantees for peace in England. This thing is 
going to be fought out by ourselves. We have sealed 
five thousand miles of coast; we have shut their 
breathing holes, and now we are putting the red hot 
torch of war at the other end, and in a short time 
victory will be determined, and while we are carrying 
on this war, God is loading up magazines for us. God 
has poured money into our coffers. But let all nations 
stand off! Sweep around the ring and stand off spec- 
tators, and now let these gigantic forms stand, — Liberty 
and God — Slavery and the Devil, and no more put 



32 

hand or foot into that ring until they have done battle 
unto the death ! Amen. Even so, Lord God Almighty, 
it is Thy decree ; this Thy purpose ; and when victory 
shall come ; " not unto us ; not unto us," but in the 
voices of thrice ten thousand ransomed ones mingled 
with all Thy children, " unto Thy name shall be the 
praise and the glory, forever and ever, amen." 



THE END. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



012 026 270 



I 




NKSGIVING SERMONS. 

BY REV... CHARLES WADSWORTH. 



I. 

/| THANKSGIVING. A 8(n-mon preached in the Arch 
Street Presbyterian Gliurcli, on Thursday, November 
2S, 18(51, by Rev. Charles Wadsworth. Price 15 
cents per copy, or $1 50 a dozen, or $10 a liundred. 

II. 

THANKFULNESS. A Sermon preached on Sabbath 
Morning, November 16, 1856, preceding the Annual 
Thankso'ivin": ; and 

CHARACTER. A Sermon preached on Thanksgiving 
Day, November 20, 1856, by Charles Wadsworth, 
in the Arch Street Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia. 
Price 25 cents, or five for One Dollar. 

III. 

AMERICA'S MISSION. A Sermon preached in the 
Arch Street Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, on 
Thanksgiving Day, November 22, 1855. By Charles 
Wadsworth. Price 25 cents, or five for One Dollar. 

IV. 

POLITICS IN RELIGION. A Thanksgiving Sermon 
preached iti the x\rch Street Presbyterian Church, 
Philadelphia, on Thursday Morning, November 23, 
1854. By Charles Wadsworth. Price 12 J cents, or 
ten copies for One Dollar. 

The above Sermons arc published in a beautiful style, 
and are for sale, (or copies will be sent free of postage,) 
at the Cheap Bookselling and Publishing House of 

T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS, 

306 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia. 



